clergyman executed for forgery, was exhibited at 2s. a head, for two hours, before being taken to the gallows. Criminals were always dressed in their best clothes, with white gloves, and they often carried nosegays of flowers given by friends and relations. It was the fashion to die merrily, as merrily as they had lived, and too often, to ensure the appropriate mirth, they drowned themselves in drink. When the day of execution came, the condemned men, thus brightly attired, were put into a cart, to be loudly cheered by the huge crowds awaiting them.
"As clever Tom Clinch, while the rabble was bawling,
Rode stately through Holborn to die at his calling,
His waistcoat and stockings and breeches were white,
His cap had a new cherry ribbon to tie't.
The maids to the doors and the balconies ran,
And said, 'Lack-a-day, he's a proper young man!'
And as from the windows the ladies he spied,
Like a beau in a box, he bowed low on each side."
On his arrival at Tyburn, then a mere suburb of London, with open fields, "the executioner stops the cart under one of the cross beams of the gibbet and fastens to that ill-favoured beam one end of the rope, while the other is round the wretch's neck. This done, he gives the horse a lash with
